


drunk pre-meds and some rubber gloves

by nunaseaweed



Series: Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time [5]
Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Cliffhanger, F/M, M/M, the lost cities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:34:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29395578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nunaseaweed/pseuds/nunaseaweed
Summary: When searching for some last Neverseen members to round up, the Councillors and the Black Swan discover a tip that they are located in the Forbidden Cities. But when things go horribly wrong, Biana, Dex, Sophie, and Marella end up stranded and separated from Fitz, Tam, Keefe, and Linh, who are somewhere in the Lost Cities.
Series: Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159292





	drunk pre-meds and some rubber gloves

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the characters, I own the plot.  
> Notes:  
> -That’s what this is.  
> -3 years (give or take) after Legacy, following the events of Chapter 18  
> -I’m positively sure that this will end up being a book, like 4 or 5 parts but a book nonetheless.  
> -cussing (a lot)  
> -Amy is like a year younger than Sophie.  
> -Thanks for listening to my endless ramble.  
> -On with the show motherf**kers

“One time, okay?” Dex asked for the gazillionth time. “I cannot stress this enough, the portals are for one time use  _ only, _ one trip there, one trip back.”

“You act like something’s going to go wrong,” Rex commented, immediately being seized by his brother’s girlfriend.

Biana shook his shoulder slightly as she spoke, as if shaking sense into him. “Something always goes wrong, don’t you dare jinx it.”

“Right,” Bex dragged the word out before turning to Sophie and saying the phrase she’d been teaching her. “And that’s the tea.”

Sophie gave her young pupil a high five before turning to the rest of the triplets and adding, “She is right though, we have a habit of messing these things up. It’s only your first Black Swan mission, so don’t expect total success.”

“ _ Never expect anything above acceptable, or you’ll be disappointed _ , is what I go by,” Keefe stated, ruffling his hair and leaning against his boyfriend. 

There was no doubt that Tam was smiling, Linh and Marella had checked and confirmed that because of the way his lips were shaped, it was indeed, a smile of joy and not a smirk at a young Foxfire kid tripping over their words to ask Sophie a question. He had stated that the reason for his rare smile was that they were finally achieving the goals they’d been reaching for for years, and while that was good enough for Teirgan and the other parents to believe, his friends knew that it was really for what came after: peace. 

Finally, for the first time in six years, complete, utter, peace. Not a single Neverseen member on the loose, no more temporary calm before the storm, or having to act like they weren’t about to go on a mission there was a slight chance that they wouldn’t come back from. Actual peace. Authentic peace. Forever peace.

But that brought them back to the mission on hand. A couple of Neverseen members, along with a little Everblaze, had escaped the last time. Having recently received a tip from an emissary, the Councillors, Collective, parents, Team Valiant along with Keefe, Fitz, Maruca, Marella the twins and the triplets, (who had finally earned Dex and Juline’s permission to join the Black Swan) planned on going to the Forbidden Cities to finally put a stop to the Neverseen. They didn’t bother wearing human clothes, they expected a small ambush in a deserted area. The triplets were bummed that this would be their first and last Black Swan mission, but understood because of Sophie and Keefe’s complaining, along with awed respect of Biana’s scars, that they were lucky.

Just two years ago, all ways to get to and from the Lost Cities to the Forbidden cities were destroyed, leaving them with a new problem now, creating an entirely new way of arriving at the Forbidden Cities. Every single possible contraption and object that could, or could have been used to create something that could transport an elf to the Forbidden Cities had been completely obliterated, leaving Dex and the late Tinker’s textbooks to figure out what to do. And as if that wasn’t already hard enough, Councillor Alina decided to give him a three week deadline. 

He worked as hard as he could, and after many,  _ many _ , fails, had come up with a small device that reminded Sophie of a garage door button. But it didn’t open garages. It opened small tears in the space-time continuum, doing it’s best to mirror Sophie’s teleportation. However, they only held open for 27 seconds, and on the time crunch, he had only managed to make seven fully working ones, to be spread among 38 people. And as Dex stated before, were only for one-time use. They made a small explosion and caught fire once clicked the second time for the returning trip.

The plan was simple: assemble in Eternalia, and get in their groups ([Dex, Sophie, Biana, and Marella] [Fitz, Keefe, Tam, and Linh] [Kesler, Juline and the triplets] [Edaline, Grady, Cassius and Teirgan] [Alina, Bronte, Clarrette, Derek] [Emery, Liola, Noland, Oralie] [Ramira, Terik, Velia, Zarina] and [Alden, Della, Maruca, Wylie, and Stina]). Then they would walk through the portals, one person in each group would hold on to the portal opener, and they would fight the Neverseen, which they suspected wouldn’t be hard, since there were only four people. Then they would click the portal openers once more, and come back to Eternalia. Easy enough.

Tam and Sophie had both thought that 38 people were overkill, but apparently everyone wanted to help finish the Neverseen, even Cassius seemed to care. Odd, since he didn’t seem like he cared even the slightest bit since Keefe had come out to him. 

But putting their feuds behind them, and looking forward to the peace that lies behind the challenge ahead, Dex, Biana, Sophie, Fitz, Tam, Marella, Linh and the triplets leaped to Eternalia, where everyone else was waiting.

Dex passed out the portal opener, and got back to where Biana, Sophie, and Marella were standing. “I hope this works.” Biana gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Sophie could swear that she saw Fitz smiling. Dex clicked the button, and soon enough multiple small black holes with what looked like blue lightning cackling around the outside appeared. “27 seconds!” Dex shouted, before hurling himself into the hole, pulling Biana after him. Sophie ran in too and saw a glimpse of Marella’s leg before shutting her eyes tight.

It was a different sensation than teleporting. She felt as though she was floating through space in an orbit. She thought hard of the street she had been shown pictures of and told that that was where the Neverseen had been sensed last.

She felt her feet land lightly on the ground and opened her eyes. The balance didn’t last long, and soon enough she was tangled with Dex and Keefe on the cement. 

The chaotic knot was untangled with Fitz and Biana’s help, and as they stood up Sophie was hit with a familiar sight, the silhouettes of tall buildings on the horizon. Biting her lip, she turned to Dex and asked, “Where exactly are we?” 

“A place called Westwood. There’s a school not far from here I think,” he answered.

Memories of the Food Market and walking down the streets of Downtown flushed through her mind, accompanied by some of the worst amount of screaming human thoughts she’d ever experienced. “You think?” she asked. “It’s the best public college in the country, UCLA.”

“You’ve been here before?” Linh questioned.

“I don’t know a single child who has lived in SoCal, that has somehow managed to not go to L.A. and Hollywood.” Sophie turned toward Downtown again, admiring the view she hadn’t seen in six years.

“This doesn’t seem deserted to me,” Stina said pointedly.

“Wow, you’re right, that’s a first,” Keefe retorted. Stina rolled her eyes, but she was right, the street was filled with tourists and there was even a bus passing by, but no bad guys in sight.

Emery brought up the same point, quite obviously interrupting Dex’s thought process and causing him to snap, “No duh, just because we're not Councillors doesn’t mean we don’t have eyes.”

The councillor looked at him as if he expected an apology, which, considering Dex was understandable, but instead he kept mumbling, “Full of themselves...idiots...don’t do shit...I’ll tell them where they can shove that ego…”

“Excuse me?” Councillor Alina strained.

“No, you aren’t getting an apology this time. It has been six years of you treating me like I’m your slave, and I’m not standing for it anymore. I have saved more lives and carried more weight than most of you put together, and you have the  _ audacity  _ to treat me like a fucking child that knows nothing? Fuck that. Fuck you. I give zero shits,” Dex ranted. For a moment, everyone was taken aback, but then Tam broke a smile. Fitz and Linh joined him, Marella and Keefe started clapping, and Biana, Sophie, Kesler and the triplets beamed at him. Everyone but the Councillors was smiling as he added, “And that’s a bomb.”

Everyone’s smiles dropped and Stina questioned, “A what?!”

“A bomb, ya know, the thing that goes boom and blows you to bits.”

“I know a bomb is,” she defended.

“Then why did you ask?” Dex threw back, walking away angrily and straining his ears to find where the low beeping was coming from.

“He is not playing today,” Sophie whispered to Biana, who nodded, astonished, in response.

“It’s called a rhetorical question,” Stina continued. 

“Well take your rhetorical question, and shove it up your ass. It’s called keeping your mouth shut and letting the King do his thing,” Keefe sassed back.

“Keefe,” Fitz warned. While he did love making Stina angry, a fight between a regent and a Keefe was the last thing they needed at the moment.

“Sorry, she was being a bitch. Dex was too busy to tell her off, I thought someone should.”

Stina rolled her eyes, used to this after enduring it constantly for three years, and didn’t say anything more. No matter how much she hated it, Keefe was right, the best thing to do was keep her mouth shut.

Dex bent down for a moment in the grass by the sidewalk. Sophie self-consciously realized they were getting weird stares, but could see from people’s thoughts that they decided they were going to Hollywood and deemed it normal.

Turning his head, he saw everyone staring at him expectantly, and queried, “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” Cassius replied.

“Why are you standing there like a big group of imbeciles. I just told you there’s a bomb,” Dex stated, in disbelief.  _ How could so many people who pretend they do everything right be so dumb, _ he wondered, while adding, “Come on! Portal out of here.”

“Leave? But the whole point was to take down…” Maruca trailed off at the sound of a higher, sped up beeping noise.

“Did the beeping speed up or am I hearing things?” Linh questioned, desperately hoping the latter was true.

“Nope, it sped up, and that means we don’t have much time left. So go!” Sophie yelled.

When the  _ oh so great and powerful _ Councillors didn’t move, she grabbed the portals from them and began shoving them through. The shell-shocked parents were pushed through by Keefe and Marella and Fitz began helping Sophie. 

At last, when the only Dex and Fitz’s groups along with the Dizznee’s remained, Bex said, “We can’t leave you!”

“Look, remember when I said you have to listen to everything I say? I’m telling you to leave, don’t worry about me,” Dex said, momentarily pausing his search for the bomb.

Juline nodded at her son and opened up the portal, solemnly smiling at him and jumping through with Kesler. Dex quickly gathered the triplets into a hug and whispered, “I love you,” before pushing Lex and Rex through the portal.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Bex murmured, tears streaming down her face. Dex was reminded that they had been promised an easy mission for their first time. This was the first time Bex had cried (at least in front of him) since she was twelve. 

“It’s fine, I’m right behind you.” Bex went through mere seconds before the portal closed.

“Did you find the bomb?”Keefe asked Sophie as she kneeled in the grass.

“No, but it’s somewhere over here.”

“FOUND IT!” Linh yelled, and everyone ran over to her as she handed Dex the bomb. It was quite small, but Dex could tell just by touching it that it could blow up the entire block.

“Ok, you guys leave, we’ll dismantle the bomb and come right after you,” Marella suggested. 

Fitz nodded but then put his hand in his pocket and asked, “Wait, where’d the portal opener go?”

“Here, there’s one on the floor; it's probably ours,” Tam declared, picking it up and opening the portal. He waved goodbye, then jumped in hand in hand with Linh, Keefe and Fitz following.

Just as the portal closed after them, Dex cursed under his breath. 

“What?” Sophie asked, alarmed.

“I found the timer. 42 seconds.”

“That’s not good,” Biana murmured, half-terrified, half-used to things going wrong. “Can you dismantle it that quickly?”

“Nope. And if it detonates, it’ll blow up the entire street.”

“Not the Starbucks!” Sophie screeched. “That’s injustice!”

“Well I don’t wanna die either, so what are we supposed to do?” Marella questioned.

“23 seconds.”

“Throw it into the sky!” Sophie offered. “It’s L.A., nobody’s gonna think much of it. If it goes far enough they’ll assume we’re shooting a movie!”

“You sure?” Dex wondered. “15 seconds.”

Sophie nodded, closing her eyes. The bomb subtly lifted out of Dex’s hand floating higher and higher up. It was barely a speck in the sky when Sophie screamed, “YEET!” and pushed it one last time so it hurtled out of sight. There was a big boom, and the bomb exploded midair. Like Sophie had predicted, The people around the street simply looked up, shrugged, and went on with their day.

“Wonderful,” Dex thanked, “Now, where’s the portal opener?”

“There’s one right here,” Marella offered, pointing at the spot where the rest of their friends had just disappeared. 

Dex picked it up and clicked it, but nothing happened. He frowned in dismay and clicked it again, before realization dawned his face. “Ah, great.”

“Please, please do not tell me things got worse,” Biana pleaded.

Dex avoided her eyes, “If you say so…”

Marella dragged her hands down her face, whining, “What now?”

“This one is broken. We’re stranded,” Dex answered.

“We’re stranded? And the only way to get back is for one of those idiots, none of which are technopaths, are supposed to build something to get us back?” Sophie asked in disbelief.  _ This could not be happening. _

“Well, would you look at that,” Dex grumbled. “It gets worse.”

Biana bit back a scream as Dex explained that that portal opener was the one Keefe, Fitz, and the twins had used, and since it didn’t blow up like planned, it had to be broken.

“Which means what exactly?” Marella questioned.

“The portal they went through wasn’t strong enough to take them back to Eternalia, meaning there in the Forbidden Cities. Good news is, they can’t be too far from here. Same continent at the very least.” Dex reasoned.

“Same continent…” Sophie faltered.

After a few moments of silence in which the four elves processed exactly what this meant, Marella asked, “So, what now? How do we go back?”

“We don’t,” Dex blurted. “No way in hell are they gonna be able to build a portal. We’re done.”

“So we have no choice but to give up,” Biana said, in a dazed state.

“Well is it really giving up if we’re not giving anything up. It’s like getting to the end of a path. There’s nothing else. We’re just accepting reality,” Sophie offered. 

“You’re being uncharacteristically optimistic about this, Soph,” Marella declared.

Sophie nodded, “Let’s get me a latte and let it sink in, shall we?”

“Sounds good, I’ll buy,” a new voice came from a couple feet away on the sidewalk. “What’s the occasion?” Amy Foster asked.

“Amy!” Sophie shouted, running over to her sister and engulfing her in a hug. Amy’s dark green bomber jacket fluttered in the wind as she caught her. Sophie looked down at Amy’s black boots and back at her green headband before adding, “You’re so tall!” 

“Um yea, people grow, Soph. Especially in 3 years.”

But Sophie didn’t seem to hear her as her eyes were drawn down to her belt, “Who got you a Gucci belt?”

Amy smirked a smirk worthy of Keefe as she explained. “Mom and Dad got me it for graduation.”

“Graduation? You finished high school? What college are you going to?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve been going to tours of the schools that accepted me, that’s why I’m here.”

Sophie closed her eyes whispering, “Please tell me it was UCLA.”

“Better, I got into both! If I had to choose, I’d go to UCLA though,” Amy explained. “But what I want to know, is why are you guys here?”

Dex sighed, “Long story. Thing is, we can’t go back.”

Sophie blinked twice, as if bringing herself back to reality. She opened her mouth to say something, and insead marched off towards the crosswalk in silence.

“Well, coffee it is then,” Marella stated, following Sophie.

Amy gave a very confused look to Biana and Dex, who started to explain what had happened as they walked towards the Starbucks.

After everything that had happened in the span of two hours, a latte was exactly what was needed.


End file.
